He
was vaguely aware of being lifted with gentle care into somebody's
arms, and of the somebody staggering along with him, not without
considerable difficulty, over the rough stony ground of that South
African plateau. He remembered also, as in a trance, some sound of
angry voices--a loud expostulation--a hasty palaver--a long slow
pause--a gradual sense of reconciliation and friendliness--during
all which, as far as he could recover the circumstances afterwards,
he must have been extended on the earth, with his back propped
against a great ledge of jutting rock, and his head hanging listless
on his sinking breast. Thenceforward all was blank, or just dimly
perceived at long intervals between delirium and unconsciousness.
He was ill for many days, where or how he knew not.
In some half dreamy way, he was aware too, now and again, of strange
voices by his side, strange faces tending him. But they were black
faces, all, and the voices spoke in deep guttural tones, unlike
even the clicks and harsh Bantu jerks with which he had grown
so familiar in eighteen months among the Barolong. This that he
heard now, or seemed to hear in his delirium, like distant sounds
of water, was a wholly different and very much harsher tongue--the
tongue of the Namaquas, in fact, though Granville was far too ill
and too drowsy just then to think of reasoning about it or classifying
it in any way.
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